The fornix of the brain is a bundle of axons crucial for memory functions, as it is the largest
pathway linking the hippocampus with distal brain sites. During the normal aging process,
myelinated axons (or nerve fibers) in the fornix area of the rhesus monkey brain decrease in
number with age. Myelin degeneration also increases with age. Understanding axons at the
ultrastructural level is a critical issue for understanding the human connectome.
In this presentation, we present a new method to identify and quantify differences in
myelinated axons and their surrounding myelin sheath. This method uses statistical physics
tools to characterize properties ranging from morphologic characteristics of individual fibers to
macroscopic and structural properties of collections of fibers and their spatial relationships.
This allows quantification of their differences and improves on traditional measures, such as
packing density and fiber size.